if you mean "making lowest common denominator appeals to achieve a 'majority'" then yeah.

this is biggest part of the problem tho, how do you have a second tier of government that has real checks and balances on the lower tier, isn't an old people's version of the lower tier, and still has some democratic accountability/doesn't just represent the most powerful vested interests in the country?

"It can't be right to have people able on housing benefit to live in streets and homes that hard-working people are unable to live in themselves."

1. fuuuuuuck youuuuuu shapps2.'hard working' and 'on housing benefit' are not mutually exclusive3. you know what's really not right? a council unable to house people because there's fuck all social housing and no control on private rents

this is biggest part of the problem tho, how do you have a second tier of government that has real checks and balances on the lower tier, isn't an old people's version of the lower tier, and still has some democratic accountability/doesn't just represent the most powerful vested interests in the country?

idk how important democratic accountability is in a second chamber - it's ideally meant to be a check ON the flaws of representative democracy. the trouble is how you balance that with having some form of credible composition

arguably slightly less of a sham if you remove hereditary peers, retired MPs from the lower house, QCs, bishops etc. The problem is not replacing them with identikit career politicians. Wild ideas: ban party affiliation? Elect using full PR?

sorry, didn't see that re. party affiliation. Agreed that oligarchy is an iron law, but political structures can be devised to ameliorate oligarchy to a greater or lesser extent- e.g. Rawls' veil of ignorance (admittedly a thought experiment rather than a working model).

xp jury service idea is an interesting one! That would be truly democratic in the sense of the Athenian polis...

"While it was part of my role to keep News Corporation informed throughout the BSkyB bid process, the content and extent of my contact was done without authorisation from the secretary of state. I do not recognise all of what Fréd Michel said, but nonetheless I appreciate that my activities at times went too far and have, taken together, created the perception that News Corporation had too close a relationship with the department, contrary to the clear requirements set out by Jeremy Hunt and the permanent secretary that this needed to be a fair and scrupulous process. Whilst I firmly believe that the process was in fact conducted scrupulously fairly, as a result of my activities it is only right for me to step down as special adviser to Jeremy Hunt."

It's just par for the course for a hunt like him, it's not even depressing. Still good to see the Murdochs sticking the boot into Hunt and Salmond, two of the smuggest bastards in British politics... just a pity they couldn't have worked Gove and Grant Shapps in there too, oh and this guy...